Madame Bovary

 I had read Madame Bovary a million years ago. It was interesting re-reading it. I remember how little sympathy I had for Emma Bovary, how vain and selfish and shallow she seemed to me. She is all of those things. But at my age now I see how young she was and how constrained and I had sympathy with her rage and frustration and admiration for her willfulness. She still isn't likeable, but it's an amazing character portrait and an indictment on the oppressive restrictions of provincial life.

Eileen

 I loved Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh! She wrote My Year of Rest and Relaxation which was also very good, but this had a crackly, crusty, visceral drive to it, a momentum of emotional squalor and social disturbance. Her character was fascinating and dark and mean and smart. I didn't want it to end because I wanted to continue to hang out with this demented curmudgeon.

In the Dream House

 In the Dream House is a beautiful memoir by Carmen Maria Machado. It is about an abusive relationship. But this doesn't describe the beauty of Machado's language. She writes in short, evocative sections, each a poetic and crystal clear encapsulation of emotional dynamics. I felt incredible sympathy for her. I will read more by this writer.

Black Wave

 Michelle Tea's novel Black Wave revisits some familiar terrain of her memoirs. San Francisco in the 90s, queer arty druggy scenes. Her writing is insightful and funny and self reflexive. Even though nothing like my life, it is relatable some how. I would have loved this book if it had remained in this register. But something happens, there is the apocalypse. You see the inklings of this throughout, the environmental degradation. Little bleak background details. But when the character moves to LA, it ramps up. And the book opens up. There is a long end section where people retreat into a dream world and it so beautiful and sad and expansive. I loved this book.

In Reflection at Kentler International Drawing Space

Just because we are sheltering in place in the midst of a pandemic doesn't mean we can't see art exhibitions. An important fixture of Brooklyn's Red Hook neighborhood, Kentler International Drawing Space has a new show "up" - an online exhibition curated by young Brooklyn artists. Reflection: Selections from the Kentler Flatfiles invites viewers to question surfaces and to look twice at things. What the light takes in and what the light gives back. From Katsutoshi Yuasa's forest woodcuts where the light strikes through branches (pictured), Emna Zghal's delicate and complex watercolors depicting bark, to bewitching figurative pieces such as Nina Buxenbaum's surreal doubles and Stephen Negrycz's lovely charcoal nudes, the 16 works each in their own way offer a space and moment to absorb the immediate experience. Each is an opportunity for reflection and at the same time they speak to each other, echoing themes and imagery. This is what we need right now, to look at art that allows us to be with our thoughts. This show was curated by artists who study and teach at ART YARD BKLYN which provides art education to children, teens, young adults, and practicing artists in the borough. These curators - Kevin Anderson, Evelyn Beliveau, Vera Tineo, Fatima Traore, and Quentin Williamston - have done an amazing job during one of the most difficult times our country has experienced and it is a gift to us all.

Kentler International Drawing Space: https://www.kentlergallery.org/Detail/exhibitions/433#

ART YARD BKLYN: https://www.artyardbklyn.org/ 

Wojnarowicz: History Keeps Me Awake at Night

Last year I saw the Wojnarowicz show at the Whitney, History Keeps Me Awake at Night. This is an artist who has long haunted me. The grit, the unflinching look at pain. The sexuality, bold, raw, unapologetic. I loved this show. Was in awe. I learned more about him. I want to learn more; I want to read his memoirs. It was also intense for me, in a nostalgic way I guess, to see how 80s his work was (duh). It was just kind of interesting how clearly I could see him as of his time, in a I only can given the passage of decades.

Warhol at the Whitney

Earlier this year I saw the Warhol exhibit at the Whitney, From A to B and Back Again. This was a glorious and immersive show. The vibrancy of his work, the confrontational aspect, making you look and somehow mocking you, our culture, at the same time. It was chronological, with artifacts and memorabilia, his magazine covers and his large scale silk screens. The social commentary in his work, the irony, and the humor all came across. It was fun and fantastic. The energy of the 80s -- the good, the bad, and the ugly.

BlackkKlansman

Last year I saw an intense movie, BlackkKlansman, by Spike Lee. It is about a black man in the 70s who joins an investigative unit in Colorado. He ends up posing over the phone as a white man interested in joining the KKK and he manages to infiltrate the organization, with a white officer standing in for him in person. This movie makes racism terrifying and brings to the surface the violence undergirding this oppression. It is an incredibly tense, fascinating film. Tight and brilliant. The acting and directing are phenomenal.

Hidden Bodies

I finished Hidden Bodies, the sequel to You by Caroline Kepnes. It was very disappointing. It made me realize how much I really loved You, how it was kind of perfect. You had the intense, disturbed, poetic energy on a romantic obsessive. This did not. This follows the protagonist as he heads to Los Angeles. It is no longer in the second person. There is no longer the driven obsession. It's just a story of someone who murders to get their way. Worse, so many wonderful preposterous things happen to him. He falls in love, reciprocally, with a beautiful, flawless, rich girt who loves to fuck and has zero personality. She is fantasy girl. Beck, in You, was actually a drawn character. Even as was seen through Joe's eyes, her individuality and complexity emerged. Not so with this chick. It was really very annoying.

Faberge: A Life of it's Own

There' a fascinating documentary on Amazon called Faberge: A Life of Its Own. It's about the Tsar's famous jeweler. The Tsar had his own jewelry makers and basically his own shop. A large part of the documentary concerns how beautiful, unique objects were created in the palace. Apparently the Tsar's family gave 1,000 gifts a year. The opulence of their life is staggering. It's beautiful: the intricacy, the colors, the craftsmanship, the attention to detail, the decorative flourishes. But this beauty is terrifying when juxtaposed with the starvation of the masses in pre-revolutionary Russia.

A Life of Its Own tells Faberge's own story but continues it after the Revolution, following the fate of the precious eggs -- Faberge's creations that were gifts to the Tsar's family. No two alike, each with a delightful surprise inside, each inspired by a different season or different event. They are amazing. The documentary follows them through the world up till the collector's today.

Waiting for Giovanni

Last year I saw Waiting for Giovanni at the Flea Theater. It is a play by Jewel Gomez about James Baldwin during the time that he was working on Giovanni's room, a novel that is openly about a gay relationship. The characters are his lover, his family and his agent (or publisher) and it is an exploration of what it means to be Black in America, a Black writer, a gay man, and a gay Black man. It is about what is expected of him by those around him and the different pressures he faces. It is about honesty and anger. it is a great play.

Like Life

Last summer I saw Like Life: Sculpture, Color, and the Body at the Met Breuer. It was a fascinating energetic, busy, over-the-top show. Every where was something that grabbed my interest. It spanned over 700 years of works depicting the human body, from classical and renaissance to contemporary. Definitely one of the most engaging shows I've been to. Yes, it was overwhelming, but there was too much to like to be bothered by ways this or that may not have worked.

The exhibition was divided into themes: The Presumption of White; Desire for Life; Proxy Figures; Layered Realities; Figuring Flesh; and Between Life and Art. If I ever had the opportunity to see this show again I would.

Vice

Last year I saw Vice, the biopic about Dick Cheney. I really liked this. Yes, it's about a depraved torturer. The movie made him into a pure villain, and it was presented in an fast, inventive way that made his villainy entertaining. How can you laugh and enjoy this? It was the combination of the horror and the pure drive of his character that gave it a kind of momentum. Vice didn't explore any of the key scandals he was involved in in much depth, but drew them with broad strokes. I remember the Bush administration well enough that I could fill in the blanks. As history this is mediocre movie, but if you understand that and you are up for a colorful portrait of evil, this works pretty well.

Emma and Max

Last year I saw Emma and Max, a play by Todd Solondz, at the Flea Theater. It is a tight focused look at the life of a very privileged couple, and sort of an expose on on the labor and suffering of others that is the foundation of their comforts. It concerns their nanny, a black woman who has endured severe trauma and the rage that lies underneath her servile demeanor.

The script and the acting were all very good, and I loved the sets and the way they were moved by Brittany, the nanny, in a slow, defeated, labored way. The presentation of the couple's obliviousness and their narcissism was both funny and disturbing. At the same time, however, it was familiar and cliched, a well-worn trump in contemporary drama.

The Favourite

Earlier this year I saw The Favourite in the theater. I loved it. It's by the same director of The Lobster, and has a similar feel to it, even thought it's very different. It is weirdly comical, but also incredibly dark, about power games and distrust. The leads are three hard, ambitious women who are in command of themselves, and this is unusual to see in movies. Queen Anne is less in command of herself than the other two, but because she is the queen she holds all the power that everyone gravitates around. I very much liked this movie.

Who Will Run the Frog Hospital

In January I read Who Will Run the Frog Hospital, a short novel by Lorrie Moore. It is so good! I think her prose is intense and just crackles. It's very dynamic and sharp writing. Very well-observed. It's about two friends in high school in the 70s and the course their lives take. The narrator's personality emerges later in the book in a sad, uncomfortable, unpleasant way that kind of illuminates the whole thing.

You

I could not put down You by Caroline Kepnes. The prose is riveting, driven by a crazed momentum with some truly beautiful moments. The story is creepy, harrowing, but not essentially interesting. What makes this kind of amazing is the voice of the narrator, the second person rant/manifesto/confession/love letter. It's a great ride and I may read the sequel, just because I'm not ready to say goodbye to Joe.

Wine Country

I love Amy Poehler and all the actresses in Wine Country. As a GenXer I was really looking forward to this. There were a handful of truly funny moments, and it's good spirited. But in the end it was only meh. Formulaic, obvious, strained, and at times depressing.

A Colony in a Nation

A Colony in a Nation by Chris Hayes is an excellent long-form essay on race and policing in our era. It provides a historical analysis, making an analogy between how lower income urban communities of color are separated from the middle class mainstream and how this boundary is enforced by the government through order maintenance policing. In a relatively short book, Chris Hayes explores these problems with nuance and compassion. He makes what is at heart a moral argument without being heavy handed at all.

Conversations with Friends

Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney is very good. It's about two young, college aged friends in Dublin. The narrator, Frances, is emotionally closed off in some ways but very observant and in some ways very self aware. It is about her relationship with a married man, and shifts in her friendship with Bobbi. Rooney does a great job describing different social dynamics and tensions in a way that made me uncomfortable but in a good way. I was surprisingly engrossed and read then novel quickly. I did have trouble with the very end and wish I could talk to someone about what they thought.